Tag Archives: Ryan Cooper

As is typical for writing in Jacobin, this article includes a section at the end that draws conclusions unsupported by the body of the article. For example, the authors state, “No political obstacle stood between President Obama and a better housing policy.” The article does not address political factors at all, so this is a bald assertion without support. It also is questionable. While certain other studies have established how the Democrats during Obama’s era have courted Wall Street and other banking/finance donors, if you follow (for example) Thomas Ferguson‘s “Golden Rule” theory about “investment” in elections, which holds (in greatly simplified form) that politicians are vetted by moneyed interests and masses are too poor to be able to influence the choices offered in an election, then the authors would need to establish that Obama could have raised the same or more money elsewhere (Bernie Sanders’ small donor approach seems like the closest and easiest comparison point). This also requires an assumption that Obama and the Democrats care/cared about long-term consequences, rather than limiting themselves to short-term thinking (e.g., sacrificing the future for a near-term win) — which is normative. That criticism aside, the linked article does do a good job illustrating how the problem discussed is fundamentally political in character.